So, my first session of the day was quite literally a wash out! I was speaking on a panel at The Marketing Academy Villa with a selection of brilliant minds including: Ursula Mejia Malgar (Diageo), Kexin Chen (Salesforce), Bill Brock (AnalogFolk Group) and Sam Phillips (McKinsey), and as we were about to start, the heavens opened.
Ever ingenious we re-grouped under cover, improvised a lot, and had one of my favourite discussions of the week. The topic was: the critical role CMOs play in reflecting the diverse societies they serve and exploring how to effectively enhance brand relevance and achieve diversity goals in your organisation and the industry.
And the three big themes: 1. You must ‘show up’ before you ‘show off’, 2. You need to be bold and stay bold, 3. There is rightly a big expectation on CMO’s to jointly lead on this.
My second highlight of the day was bumping into the brilliant team from Ray-Ban and Meta promoting their new smart glasses. I was a little sceptical, but they blew me away!
Cannes is all about connecting with people old and new… and Thursday brought some great discussions – with Joe Petyan from WPP, Vikaas from my TMA alumni and quite literally bumping into Dagmara and the team from the IAA.
Lunch took the form of a great roundtable where Ben Thompson, Senior Lead Presenter, BBC News, led an informative discussion, in partnership with UK Advertising and the Marketing Society with a group of 20 or so marketers, agency leads and production specialists from the UAE and UK.
It was on how global marketers can amplify their brands’ narrative impact, harnessing the potential of emerging technologies to captivate and inspire through powerful, engaging stories. There was healthy debate and some interesting food for thought – it was particularly interesting to hear the different perspectives.
Key stats for Cannes Lions Thursday 20th June 2024: 20 plus valuable conversations, 5 new contacts and 18,512 steps.
By Tricia Weener, Fractional CMO of Globacap
